The Miami paddock is slowly becoming populated. There is no talk of predictions on the race weekend, nor of jet-lag or the drivers’ market: the topic is, obviously, the divorce between Adrian Newey and Red Bull. There are two fronts, the future of ‘Genius’ and that of the world champion team, but somewhat surprisingly it is the second topic that takes center stage the most.
Christian Horner acted early, renewing Pierre Waché’s contract with (from what is rumored) a major adjustment to the salary item. The forty-nine-year-old French engineer has held the position of technical director of the team since 2018, and if in the first years his contact was Newey, for three seasons he has reported directly to Horner.
Pierre Wache, director of Red Bull Racing, with Helmut Marko
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
According to several engineers from opposing teams, Red Bull will not suffer major setbacks in the short term. Waché’s working group, which includes aerodynamic manager Enrico Balbo, plus Craig Skinner, Ben Waterhouse and Paul Monaghan, will ensure continuity until the end of 2025.
The most important test will come in two seasons, and Red Bull will have to pass it without the person who in key moments proved to be a very precious added value, the enlightened assist capable of unraveling complicated problems.
The great challenge awaiting Horner and his team is not to fall like the previous teams abandoned by Newey. This was the case for Williams, which was left orphaned by ‘Genius’ in 1996 due to the attitude of owner Frank and technical manager (and partner of the team) Patrick Head. Both were reluctant to recognize the scope of Newey’s work, and Ron Dennis was quick to enter those cracks by convincing Newey that McLaren would be the opportunity for his consecration.
In the following eight seasons ‘Genius’ proved to live up to (high) expectations, but even on this occasion Dennis himself was unable to fully recognize the importance of his work in the return to world victory with Mika Hakkinen to his designer. Hence the divorce. As happened with Williams, Newey’s departure also coincided with a slow decline at McLaren, overwhelmed by the SpyStory case and with the only exception of the world title won by Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
For Dennis, Newey’s move to the newly formed Red Bull was a shock, a choice that he justified only with the large financial offer put on the table by Dietrich Mateschitz, late owner of the Austrian group. As Newey recalled on several occasions, Dennis also gave up on the gardening period as he did not see Red Bull as a threat to McLaren. Almost twenty years later the situation is similar: Newey will leave Red Bull at the end of the season with the freedom to be able to work for another team starting from 1 January 2025.
But the similarities are not limited to gardening alone. Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, and now Christian Horner, have put the team, and probably even themselves, ahead of the man Newey, an undisputed genius but probably also cumbersome when it comes to assigning credit for a success.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
The Horner scandal has probably accelerated the pace, but the first rumors of an increasingly cold relationship (between Horner and Newey) date back exactly one year ago. Voices that seemed out of place in front of the usual champagne shower under the podium and the 21 celebratory group photos of 2023.
Now that the divorce has truly taken place Horner has put the vision of Red Bull Racing 2.0 on the table, a group that will be without the person who has played a crucial role in all the successes achieved by the team so far, with a power unit created in-house and probably (from 2026) also without Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko.
A total ‘all-in’, that of Horner, supported by Chalerm Yoovidhya, holder of 51% of the Red Bull group, but with quite a few enemies awaiting the team principal if 2026 proves to be a flop. It will be a difficult test, more difficult even than the one that awaited Horner in 2005, when as a thirty-two-year-old new team principal he had to transform an idea for an energy drink company into a winning project. Twenty years ago there was time and there was no pressure, from now on it will be exactly the opposite.
